


Ashes Like Snow

by Cherrys_Criminal_Mind



Category: Criminal Minds, Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Death, F/M, Song fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-09 20:30:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5554241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cherrys_Criminal_Mind/pseuds/Cherrys_Criminal_Mind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A one shot from my blog. </p><p>Spencer and his wife mourn the loss of their daughter.</p><p>I know this sounds like a horrendous, but if you can; please read it. The comments on my tumblr for it have been really good, so if you're looking for something to make you cry, this should do it</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Ashes falling like snow  
As the wind blows the last breathes upon the breeze_

Spencer looked at his wife, sitting there on the small bench staring at the new pile of soil that had recently been filled in. Jennifer was sat next to her, holding her hand and rubbing it softly.

He needed to get her home, but he didn’t know the words to say to her to make her leave. He didn’t want to leave either, but there was no use staying here. It wouldn’t change anything.

His other colleagues were surrounding him, the last to leave, he knew they’d stay with him until the very end if he had to. They’d been there for him since that first morning he’d called into work, he couldn’t come in, something had happened. They’d been devastated for him and for themselves.

They’d loved her too, even though they’d barely had chance to get to know her.

_Ashes falling like snow  
All the people you’ll never know that you brought to their knees_

Spencer blamed himself and she blamed herself, despite the fact that all of the medical professionals and all of his friends, and their family had told them that was nothing that either of them could have done. In recent years the percentage of SIDS related deaths had decreased but it was still something that happened.

Just no one ever thought it would happen to them.

He replayed the memories of that morning over and over in his head. The baby hadn’t woken since her 2am feed and his wife had gone in to check on her, letting out a panicked call for Spencer which sent him running. The next few hours were a blur, a blur of Drs and tears and her falling to her knees when they tried to take the lifeless body from her arms to take to the morgue.

Ten weeks. That was all they’d had. Nine months of waiting for their daughter to be born and they’d only gotten ten weeks with her. They’d had a daughter and now… They didn’t.

_Ooo-ooo_  
Won’t you meet me in the morning?  
Ooo-ooo  
You left without any warning  
Ooo-ooo Oh-Oh  
I don’t know where to put you now 

She sniffed and wiped away another tear, looking over to where Spencer was stood with their colleagues, his black coat flapping in the breeze. JJ was the only one that she’d allowed to sit with her. Because JJ knew at least some of the pain she was going through, the others didn’t. Even Spencer only knew part of her pain.

She was angry at everyone and no one all the same time. It had taken three weeks before they’d been able to lower the tiny casket into the ground. An investigation had to be carried out with SIDS to rule out any foul play. Police officers and family liaison agents asking them question after question. Even their standing as FBI agents didn’t help, they had to go through the same rigmarole as any other family who had lost a child in this horrendous way.

_People floating on down_  
A strange dance from the towers in the sky  
People floating on down  
Fire so hot at their backs; better to hit the ground 

Lost a child.

What an odd way to put it, she now thought. She hadn’t lost anyone. She knew exactly where her perfectly formed ten week old daughter was. She was in the ground, in a tiny white coffin that looked barely big enough to hold a teddy bear let alone a child filled with all the love, hopes and adoration that she and Spencer had filled her with.

She’d been their angel, their perfect plan.

What happened now? What was she meant to do?

_Ooo-ooo_  
Won’t you meet me in the morning?  
Ooo-ooo  
You left without any warning  
Ooo-ooo Oh-Oh  
I don’t know where to put you now 

JJ stood from her seat next to her, swapping with Spencer who had walked over.

“I’ll wait by the cars for you.” Their blonde friend, her Godmother, murmured to them before walking away slowly.

“Sweetie… We should go. It’s getting late.”

She shook her head. Go where? Her daughter was here. At least in the hospital morgue, she’d been surrounded by people day and night. Here, she was alone.

“Baby, it’s cold.”

“You go. I’m staying.” She told him, seeing a tear roll down his cheek.

“You can’t. You can’t stay here, you need to come home.”

“I can’t leave her Spencer. She’s… She’s so little and she’s out here all alone. Please don’t make me leave her.” Her voice cracked and more tears fell, stinging her skin which was already chapped and raw from the amount of tears she’d already shed but hadn’t wiped away.

_Come back, won’t you come back, won’t you come back_  
To me  
Come back, won’t you come back  
To me 

Spencer wrapped his arms around his wife, rubbing her back to try to warm her. He was hurting terribly, but he knew that inside, she was hurting in a different way. She’d carried the child for nine months, she had that extra bond that at first Spencer had been jealous off. Now…

It pained him to admit it but now he was glad that he wasn’t her. He felt so much heartache already, but it wasn’t the same as the pain she was experiencing.

_Ashes that once were bone_  
Where do we go from here?  
Ashes that once were bone  
I’m slipping from my faith  
I’m falling with my fear 

She clung to him with a ferocity he normally only felt from her when they were making love. Clutching at his coat, she buried her head into his neck whispering over and over “I can’t leave her”.

He looked at the fresh soil, wondering how long it would take for it to look like the other graves? How long would it take until it didn’t stick out? How long would it take for this gaping wound in his head and heart to heal?

Probably never, he thought.

What happened now? What was he meant to do?

_Ooo-ooo_  
Won’t you meet me in the morning?  
Ooo-ooo  
You left without any warning  
Ooo-ooo Oh-Oh  
I don’t know where to put you now 

They sat together crying for longer, his colleagues getting into their cars but still not leaving. They wouldn’t leave until he told them to. They didn’t budge when it started to snow, the snowflakes falling quickly and settling on the cold winter ground.

His brushed them off his wife’s shoulders, shaking them out of his hair as he realised that the fresh soil was being quickly covered, so that it blended in with the rest of the ground.

“Sweetie… ”

She moved away from his chest, only now realising that it was snowing.

“How will we know where she is. We don’t have a stone yet?” She whispered, her voice stricken.

“We’ll always know. Always. You know where she is and I know where she is. She’s not in the ground, that’s just her body. But her soul will surround us, forever. It’s here.” He touched his chest and then hers and for the first time in three weeks he saw the tiniest glimpse of a smile on her lips.

“Can we come back tomorrow?”

“We’ll come back everyday.”

She stood and slipped her hand into his. She was tired and it was cold. And Spencer was right, he always was. They couldn’t do anything here. They couldn’t do anything, anywhere. Not really.

They just had to figure out what happened now. What they were meant to do.

_Ashes like snow  
Where did you go-oh?_


	2. Chapter 2

_I would dig a thousand holes to lay next to you_

It had been almost a year. Almost a year since Spencer had last held her in his arms, almost a year since that teeny tiny coffin was lowered into the ground.

Almost a year since everything changed. Everything.

He’d felt grief before, at the age he was it was natural that he’d have experienced grief. Just… Never this sort of grief.

_I would dig a thousand more if I needed to_

For a short period of time, he’d had everything he ever wanted. A loving wife, a career he was passionate about. And a baby, a family; something he never actually thought he’d have. And then it was horrifically ripped away from him in the blink of an eye.

He still had the career, of course he did. It would take an awful lot for the Bureau to fire Reid, they did an awful lot of concession making and rule bending to keep him in the job in the first place just because of his intelligence and skills. But was he passionate about it anymore? Probably not, he didn’t feel passion about anything right now.

He still had the wife too. But to call her loving would have been a lie. Not that Spencer resented her for it. She was trying recently. Since she’d started being medicated three months ago, she had started dragging herself out of bed everyday. She had started bathing herself and cleaning house. And she had finally started talking to Spencer again and not avoiding him like he was the one who had caused their infant to die.

_I look around the grave for an escape route of old routines  
There doesn’t seem to be any other way_

She still cried as did Spencer. He came from work only two nights okay to find her slumped outside of the nursery door, tears running down her face. She’d tried to go in there to air the room out, give it a clean. But the sight of the small white cot had tipped her over the edge. He’d pulled her into his arms and smoothed her hair, crying with her, before tugging the door to that room shut again.

Neither of them knew what to do with their feelings. Neither of them knew how to be their for each other during this time. This time that didn’t seem to have an ending.

Spencer had read plenty of books on how to deal with death and loss, but not one of them could give him a satisfying answer to the question “when would things go back to normal, when would this stop hurting as much?”

He’d tried to get back into as much of a routine as he could. Get up, go to work, work a case, come home. Hotch had excused him from being field based for as long as Spencer needed, he was working from the BAU with Garcia, only travelling locally where required. He wanted… He needed to able to get home quickly in case his wife called him, in case she needed him.

Spencer had considered followings in his wife’s footsteps and taking a trip to his Doctor. As intelligent as he was, he could self diagnose though and he didn’t think he was clinically depressed.

Just very very sad and low.

_Cause I’ve started falling apart I’m not savouring life  
I’ve forgotten how good it could be to feel alive_

He sat on the small wooden bench in front of the grave, the bench he could almost guarantee that his wife would have been sat at only hours before. The bench he’d almost had to drag her from on the day of the funeral. It was a peaceful place to be as cemeteries tended to be and Spencer always felt a sense of calm when he came here. Which was strange considering the emotion he felt when he left.

He hated leaving. He always felt like he was leaving her, his little angel who lay six feet under. His pride and joy, a child born out of love and adoration. A child so wanted, so needed. A child that was no more.

_Crazy as it sounds you wont feel as low as you feel right now_

His friends and colleagues had all been incredibly supportive. He didn’t know quite how he’d have made it this far without them. JJ especially had been a godsend, being the only one his wife would open up to. Her support never wavered and Spencer was thankful to have her in their lives.

Rossi had sustained them during the months his wife had confined herself to her bed. He bought meals over an a regular basis, meals he’d cooked and frozen, giving Spencer a list of heating instructions. Although she rarely ate with him to begin with, he’d come down stairs in the morning or come home from work in the evenings to find empty tupperware containers.

Derek, Aaron and Penelope had all been his ports during the very heavy storm. All three had held him whilst he’d openly sobbed at one point or another, whispering soothing words into his ear and telling him that it would eventually get better.

Eventually.

_At least that’s what I’ve been told by everyone_

When though, was what he wanted to know?

When would he stopped feeling so empty inside? When would he stop feeling like nothing would be right again?

When would he know the right things to say to his wife to make her look at him in the way she’d done a year ago.

_I whisper empty sounds in your ear and hope that you won’t let go  
Take the pieces and build them skywards_

He stared at the grave in front of him, fresh violets laid out in front of it. It didn’t seem real that it was almost a year, that he’d sat here through the snow, sat here having springtime blossom blowing around him, sat during the baking summer and the cool autumn, the leaves crunching beneath his feet.

He was startled suddenly, his cell phone ringing in his pocket. His wife’s ring tone. He answered it, hearing incomprehensible words down the phone. She was crying. He’d be home shortly he told her, rushing to his feet and hurrying out of the cemetery.

_Cause I’ve started falling apart I’m not savouring life  
I’ve forgotten how good it could be to feel alive_

He couldn’t find her at first. She wasn’t in the living room or the kitchen. She wasn’t in any of the bedrooms and at first glance, she didn’t seem to be in the en suite bathroom.

But then he saw her, tucked away behind the door, her knees drawn up to her face and her shoulders gently racking. He closed the door and slid down next to her, hating how she flinched when he placed his arm around her.

“What is it, what’s wrong?” feeling stupid for even asking.

It was then that she pulled out a small object from beside her, handing it to him.

A pregnancy test.

A positive pregnancy test.

“Whaaat? When? How?”

She sniffed, hiccupping as she tried to catch her breath. Thinking about it, he didn’t even have to ask. There had only been one time since. Which meant she was about three months gone, well fourteen weeks to be precise.

 _I’ve started falling apart I’m not savouring life_  
Take the pieces and build them skywards  
I’ve forgotten how good it could be to feel alive  
Take the pieces and build them skywards

“I don’t…. We can’t…. Spencer…. ”

He knew what she was trying to say and he closed his eyes.

“If you really don’t, then we don’t have to.”

It wasn’t something he’d imagined happening so quickly. He could hardly imagine having another child so soon after putting one into the ground.

But now it had happened, a tiny spark had lit inside of him. A spark that he could feel fast extinguishing.

“We just can’t…. What if the same thing happens?”

She was becoming more understandable now, her breathing more under control. She turned to look at him and Spencer tentatively reached out with his hand, catching her falling tears and wiping them away.

“What if it doesn’t?” he asked her. For SIDS to occur twice to the same couple would be very very unfortunate and also very unlikely.

“What if this happening now, is a sign. What if this is what we need, what our marriage needs, what WE need.”

What if this new baby was going to be the answer? The turning point, the thing that helped rebuild the pieces of their broken lives.

“I…. What if I can’t… What if I can’t love it the same though? What if I can’t love it or I can’t be a mother to it?”

“You won’t love it the same. Because you don’t love every person the same, sweetheart. If you do this, if WE do this, you’ll love it differently as will I. Because it will be a different baby, a different person. Not a replacement, not a substitute. It will be our new baby, a new beginning for us. And you know what?”

“What?” her voice was quiet, her eyes searching his.

“It would be extra loved, and have extra protection. Because their big sister will be watching over them from above and looking out for them. This could be our gift from her, her way of telling us it’s time to move on. Not to forget her though, because that will never ever happen.”

“No, it won’t. It can’t.”

Spencer felt hope suddenly, a lightness in his heart that he hadn’t felt for months. But he didn’t want to push anything, he couldn’t make her do this if she wasn’t ready. He wouldn’t want to make her do this if she wasn’t ready.

So he waited.

 _Take the pieces and build them skywards_  
and  
Take the pieces and build them skywards

“Spencer…. Can we really do this?”

“If you want to. Only if you want to.”

“I think…. I think. Maybe I do.”

_Take the pieces and build them up to the sky._


End file.
